Monthly Archives: January 2011

A Point is a Point

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Another shootout loss.

We hosted Ron Weber and his wife in our box again last night. As OT ended, Ron tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Thank you Ted. We have to leave now. The real hockey game is over.” And then he left.

True story.

We are now 1-9 in games that go to OT or shootouts. I don’t know what it means. I do know we have left a lot of standing points on the ice. If we win a couple more of these games and get that second point, we are much better situated in the standings.

Oh well.

When you only take 17 shots on goal; go 0-2 on the power play; and take one shot in total on the power play, you take the point in a 2 to 1 shootout loss and be satisfied. The game was tense and exciting and our young goaltender is playing very well.

The system is designed to make for close scoring and low scoring games. We are being very productive in gaining standings points while being short-handed in terms of man power. One more important game left before the six day All-Star break.

Rest up. Heal up.

Onward then to last 30 or so games of the season.

Thanks for coming to the game last night. Go Caps!

Five Out of Six Points on Road Trip

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All of the concerns and angst all aimed at us via pixel generation and blogs and emails and opinions last week before the road trip. It is time to give it a bit of a rest, just today on a Sunday.

Take the day off.

Calm your mind.

Relax. Take a deep breath.

Ahh…feels good, doesn’t it? :-)

A nice and productive road trip with 5 of 6 points.

We played short-handed.

With our third young net minder in goal, anyone think we are well positioned in net for a long time with three stellar young goaltenders? Know of any other team in the NHL that is as well positioned? Well done front office.

Hockey Night in Canada and Alex Ovechkin gets a hat trick.

I want to remind people that Alex has said to me and to the world that he isn’t interested in individual performance metrics. He is only interested in winning. I am proud of him for his belief system. Isn’t that what we want from a captain?

Two more tough games to play before the All-Star break, one at home on Monday night and one on the road against a divisional foe.

I am hopeful we start to regain some players for the stretch run. There will be 31 games left to play after that break.

We are ten points ahead of the 9th place team right now. We want to qualify for the playoffs. That is job one.

We want to overcome adversity and win lots of close games. We want to play better defense and get good goaltending.

Enjoy the day off.

Enjoy the two victories from your two indoor professional sports teams last night.

Go Caps!

Dirty Dozen

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For a time, I grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts. That was my parents’ hometown. I graduated from Lowell High School.

I made many friends in Lowell, mostly playing on high school and church basketball teams. I played point guard – don’t laugh – I could shoot and I had a pretty good basketball IQ. At least that is how I remember it! :-)

When I was able to invest in the Washington Wizards, I would go see the Wizards play the Celtics in Boston and we would all get together at the game. One memorable game was when all my friends got to meet and hang out with Michael Jordan after a game. It was a lifelong memory to many of my sports addicted friends. It was a joy for me to offer up this kind of memory to my friends.

From time to time my friends would make the trek to see me and take in a game here in DC.

Last night was no different and 11 of my childhood friends came to see the game. They were honestly happy to know that now we now own the Wizards and we have become their second favorite team in the NBA.

They trashed talked me in a friendly way. I had to remind them that the last time they came and visited the Wizards won at home against the Celtics in their championship year.

The game started and whoosh – before you knew it – we were down 16 points.

But we didn’t lose our composure. We kept chipping away at that lead.

And soon it was tied. Our coaching staff did a remarkable job last night fitting in rotations without Kirk Hinrich and Josh Howard in the lineup and Nick Young having a tough night in terms of shooting percentage.

And then John Wall hit an improbable bank shot 3 pointer and there you go. Wizards win – Wizards win. A quality win against a really great team.

My friends had a wonderful time. They leave with a loss and for the moment, I get to shut them up about Celtics mystique.

Thank you Wizards fans for being so supportive last night. It felt great to get that win at home.

I vow to build a team that is of high quality, a generationally great team and one that sells out the building WITH JUST OUR FANS. We will compete for division titles and then championships at some point in our rebuild. That is the plan.

I know we have many great fans sitting on the sidelines awaiting results from us. It is my job to activate your latent interest in basketball and our team. I get it and I promise to never rest until you are in our building cheering our team on.

Kudos to the players and staff for last night’s win. It was a fun game and a fun night. Thank you.

A Special Weekend – Great Men Remembered

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What an unbelievably warm and authentic ceremony that was yesterday. It was all about family, hope and love. It was so great to see so many friends that have surrounded the Shriver Family for so many years. We were truly honored to attend this celebration of his life.

Hearing the entire Shriver family talk about the love affair between their mother and father brought a tear to my eye.

Hearing about Sarge’s fight for civil rights with Martin Luther King, Jr.; his work on the War on Poverty; his founding of The Peace Corps; his work with Special Olympics; and on and on was truly magical.

President Clinton gave a warm address. He interned for Sargent Shriver and helped to run his campaign for VP back in 1972. As did our Vice President Joe Biden who spoke with passion about what the Shriver family meant to him on a personal basis.

Bono sang and Stevie Wonder played harmonica.

Truly amazing. Hanging out on the bus with so many friends of Sarge and hearing stories about civil rights marches and meeting with LBJ was like living in a real history class come alive.

Very touching and very moving. RIP Sargent Shriver. You were truly loved and you were beloved in our community.

On Friday, I attended the services for another great man, Melvin S. Cohen. His son Neil is one of our partners in Monumental Sports. The service was equally moving and the family speeches about this great man, philanthropist and business leader were perfect in every regard. Melvin founded District Photo in Washington, DC and was a stalwart leader in the business and Jewish communities. He loved sports and he was one of Abe Pollin’s partners.

Two great men remembered fondly throughout DC and the land. They will be missed. God bless their souls.

Nice to See

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It was nice to see our first line get a lot of production last night.

It was nice to see our penalty kill stop 6 power plays.

It was nice to see some players that are really banged up gut it out and play for each other and for our coach last night. We have some players that are warriors and play hurt and just don’t whine and complain. I am grateful.

I am grateful to get two points on the road.

We remain short-handed with many options for our staff out of the lineup. And with several players laboring under a long season of bumps and bruises.

I thought we played a professional grade road game last night. We won a close one.

We played a rookie goaltender from Hershey who had two tough outings for the Caps earlier in the season. He played quite well with poise and determination. Our team rallied around him. Well done.

We have 60 points. There are 34 games left to play. We are 5th in the East. We are 7th in the NHL in terms of points. We are 7 points out of first place in the entire NHL but we are only 8 points securely in a playoff spot in the East. The NHL is hyper competitive. We can’t rest. We have to play and get points in any manner possible as we did last night.

The Southeast Division is also one of the toughest in the NHL. It is possible that 4 teams in the division could qualify for the playoffs. Name me one expert that called that out as a possibility when the season began?

It is a grind of a season.

We have 3 more games left to play before the All-Star break.

I am hopeful that after the All-Star break, we will regain several players back into the lineup. That will be very helpful. Many hands make light work. The ability to get continuity and spread out scoring across multiple lines will be most welcomed.

We don’t make excuses. No one feels sorry for anyone in professional sports. Go Caps!

Celtics Game This Saturday Night

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I believe we will be sold out. Thank you.

But I don’t have to do the “Dougie” as I stated clearly the games against the Lakers, Heat and Celtics wouldn’t be considered in my offer to dance.

This means we will see many local fans that are Celtics fans at this game. Same as we did against the Lakers and Heat and the Knicks game, too.

We are up in ticketing based revenue about 30 percent year over year. Thank you Wizards community and fans. The more local fan support we get, the better we play it seems at home. Just check the record. We are 4 games over 500 at home. We have yet to win a game on the road. Gulp!

We have sold many thousands of new season tickets compared to last season to our fans. My goal is first to get to 10,000 season tickets and then to 12,000. That is an aspiration.

We have a lot of work left to do and there are now always about 5,000 unsold tickets for every game. Those tickets are being bought on a game day basis or in the secondary market by fans of these specific teams. That is how we get to a sell out against some of these teams.

My goal is to sell all of our tickets to our own fans via season tickets but we have miles to go before we sleep.

I wanted you all to have a heads up beforehand. I have seen the movie before. All we have to do is improve and win. We will sell out every game and play every game in front of own passionate fan base.